


Right On Through You

by mrs_d



Series: Dead Ends [6]
Category: due South
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Case Fic, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 00:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14437944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Eighteen months after being rejected by Fraser in the Great White North, Acting Lieutenant Ray Kowalski finds the body of Frank Zuko on the shores of Lake Michigan. [originally written 2015]





	1. Adventure

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Sarah McLachlan's ["Steaming" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kgoWgYXavM), which you may recognize from S01E10, "The Gift of the Wheelman."
> 
> I only recently re-discovered this story lurking on my hard drive. It was written in the summer of 2015, when I first started writing fanfiction. Writing fanfic was extremely therapeutic for me at the time, while I was finishing my grad school work. Unfortunately, as this particular story evolved, I learned that 1) writing is hard, and B) writing mystery is really hard, and so I abandoned it. 
> 
> But I wanted to share it with you, because I haven't seen many stories like it. I tried, in this piece, to combine Ray K with the world of Frank Zuko and the darker side of Ray V that we see in "The Deal" and "Juliet is Bleeding". I'm hoping that someone, somewhere, will see this and get some ideas and join me in this little sandbox. (TAG ME IF YOU DO. I WANT TO READ IT.) 
> 
> In the endnotes, I'll outline what I remember planning for the rest of the story. I hope you enjoy the potential of this story as much as I do.

If Ray had to guess, he’d fallen for Fraser a long time before they chased Muldoon up to Freezer Land; Vecchio’s return and the suddenly all-too-real possibility that Fraser might go away forever just solidified it for him. So when he found himself crammed in that ice crevasse, talking about _going on an adventure_ , he was really just talking about _going on_. With Fraser. He was ready to quit the force, quit Chicago, quit everything, and follow Fraser to the ends of the earth and beyond (which pretty much meant Canada).

That night by the fire, Ray learned that Fraser wasn’t going back to Chicago — not with him, not with Vecchio — and that he didn’t want to work with Thatcher in Toronto, either. That meant his home was in the North, end of story. And Ray got that, even though he didn’t really know where his home was at that moment, except maybe beside Fraser. So as soon as he pulled Fraser out of that mine shaft, dragging Muldoon’s handcuffed ass up behind him, the first thing Ray asked him was if Fraser would go looking for the hand of Franklin with him. And Fraser had said _yes_.

Ray knew he was asking a lot, and he didn’t know what he was expecting Fraser to say, but _yes_ wasn’t high on the list of possibilities. Maybe _That’s ridiculous, Ray_ or _I think you’ve become unhinged, Ray_ , or maybe even _Are you quite certain you’re not concussed, Ray?_ Regardless, Fraser did say _yes_ , and when he did, what Ray heard was _I love you, too_ — or, as Fraser seemed to prefer saying, _And I you_ , which actually sounded better for a partnership, like it was the two of them versus the world. Anyway, that’s what Ray heard, and even though he really wasn’t sure what being in love with another man meant logistically (he’d stopped freaking out about that after his brush with hypothermia), he was hoping an adventure would give them to time to figure it out, where they stood. And Fraser had said _yes_.

They spent every night beside each other, closer when it was colder, further apart when it was warmer, which wasn’t very often at first but soon it was every night as spring snuck in. They protected each other and the dogs from the wilderness; it was like when the bad guys were shooting at them — the two of them against a world that kept trying to kill them. It was partnership. Trust. Intimacy.

Intimacy — not sex. Ray used to think those were the same thing. They were with Stella. Maybe they always are with first loves, with the memory of early days of exploration, when sex was something secret that only became clear by degrees, when you were all hormones and elbows, when every touch was electric. Even now, there’s a muted tingle in Ray’s stomach on summer evenings when the light is gold enough to be almost red, because he can still remember Stella at twenty-one, climbing into his car on a Friday night in a short skirt with her hair glowing in the sunset — his Gold Coast girl forever.

After the divorce, she wanted one and Ray wanted the other, and everything was so perfect in the bedroom that it was a long time before Ray could see that he couldn’t get intimacy through sex with Stella anymore, if he ever could. The bedroom was a little world all their own, not them versus the world, not after the divorce. (Maybe not even in the marriage either.) When Ray finally figured that out — the Christmas before Muldoon — he figured it out in a real simple flash: he suggested intimacy (not sex), and Stella told him to drop dead.

With Fraser, it wasn’t about sex on account of them never having any. Looking back to their time together before the adventure, Ray saw things that might have someday led to sex, things like hand-holding and shoulder-touching and climbing over each other in cars and locking lips underwater. So it wasn’t like Ray had suggested trekking across the frozen wastelands of Canada so that he could get laid. No. Ray had suggested trekking across the frozen wastelands of Canada so that he and Fraser could get some perspective. Because life looked different on top of a mountain, and life looked different at the bottom of a crevasse, and life looked different in the middle of a frozen lake that was making seriously unsettling noises under his feet.

And life looked different with Fraser there, only Fraser there, looking out for him, carrying him when he couldn’t go on. In short, Ray was looking at life and looking at Fraser differently, and what he was seeing looked an awful lot like love. So Ray wanted to carry Fraser too, but more than anything else he wanted Fraser to let him. Ray wanted Fraser to let him in — into his heart, into his home (planet), into Canada — and a few months in the middle of nowhere with no one but each other for company seemed like a good place to start.

And Ray was right.

Then, in May, Fraser got sick. Nothing too serious, probably food poisoning of some kind. It didn’t last long — maybe thirty hours — but it felt like an eternity. At first, Ray tried to give Fraser some privacy as his stomach kept trying to turn itself inside out, but eventually, Fraser got so dizzy he kept falling over when he tried to throw up. So Ray held on to him to keep him from getting all snowy and wet, since the weather was warm enough in the day to make everything soggy, but cool enough in the short nights to freeze wet socks.

Fraser kept saying how cold he was, which frankly terrified Ray, so he kept a fire stoked and gave Fraser all the blankets. Then he remembered something Fraser had told him about ginger, and he got Dief to dig through the pack till he found it, a tiny piece of dried root that didn’t smell like anything, but Ray threw it in a pot and boiled the water till it smelled gingery. Once Fraser had some of that, he stopped puking and even managed to get to sleep.

Ray didn’t. He watched Fraser twitch, listened to him mutter ( _I knew you were in trouble, Dad; I got you the diamonds, Victoria, what more do you want; Meg, I can’t forget the train, don’t ask me to_ ), and when Fraser said _Ray_ in a loud voice, Ray said, “I’m here. I’m here, Fraser, it’s okay,” and Fraser said, _That man is not Ray Vecchio._

Ray left the tent then, even though he knew it was dangerous to go outside with his face all wet the way it was. He stared up at the stars which were brighter than the pink aurora, thinking about perspective and hindsight and about how maybe he needed new glasses. Then he went back in the tent and chewed his fingernails until Fraser started to wake up, at which point he went back out to the fire to see about making some porridge.

When Fraser emerged from the tent, he looked more like himself, not the muttering feverish person he’d been hours before. When Ray asked if he was okay, Fraser said yes and thanked him and apologized for Ray having to look after him. And maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but Ray was suddenly pissed off beyond the telling of it. Like he always did when he got mad after being afraid — like when Fraser found some new and exciting way to risk their lives — he found himself yelling at Fraser, his voice ringing through the empty nothing that surrounded their tent. And when Fraser said something back about courtesy and graciousness, Ray really lost his shit, saying that he wasn’t some kindly stranger who’d picked up Fraser’s hat when it blew off, for Christ’s sake. He was his partner and didn’t Fraser know he’d do anything for him by now? Didn’t Fraser know that a duet was about more than _thank you_ and _I’m sorry?_ That it was about _I’ve got your back, Fraser, in everything, because you’ve got mine, and you’re it for me?_

That last part slipped out by accident, but as soon as he said it, Ray knew it was true, that it’d been true since he stepped in front of that gun, since the Henry Anderson, since the motorcycle and the skylight and the airplane and all the rest.

“Fraser, I’m in love with you. Don’t you get that?”

Fraser’s eyes came up, met Ray’s like they had on that awful day when they punched each other, and, just like that day, Fraser sighed and walked away, leaving Ray stunned, wishing Fraser’d hit him, knocked him flat, or even called him a fucking faggot and said he didn’t swing that way, thank you kindly — anything, _anything_ would have been better than walking away without a goddamn word.

Because when Fraser didn’t say _yes_ or _And I you, Ray_ , Ray knew the adventure was over.

They were three days out from civilization, from where they could split up, and nights in the tent had gone from wonderful to terrible. Finally, on their last night, Ray couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke into the dim light.

“Is it because I’m a guy?”

“No,” came Fraser’s voice after a minute. Ray had known he wasn’t sleeping. “No, I’ve been wi— that’s not the problem.”

“So it’s me, then,” Ray mumbled. Fraser didn’t reply.

After a long silence, Ray screwed up his courage to speak again. “You and Vecchio?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

“Right. I guess if we’re not fucking—”

“Ray—”

“Shut up, Fraser,” Ray snapped.

Then, after a moment, Fraser spoke again. “Marc Smithbauer,” he mumbled.

Ray sat up. Fraser’s back was turned. “You fucked a professional hockey player? What, were you his groupie?”

“We’ve known each other since we were teenagers, Ray,” Fraser replied icily.

Ray lay back down slowly. “Right, okay. I guess I can’t compete with that.”

“Ray—”

“Remember what I said about you shutting up?”

“Understood.”

That damn Mountie word. It grated at Ray the rest of the short night. _Understood_. Fraser didn’t understand a damn thing.

In the village, Ray hired a guy to drive him to Inuvik, where he’d start the long and complicated journey back to Chicago. When Ray went to get in the truck, Fraser put a hand on his forearm. Ray turned slowly, and Fraser took his hand back, going instead for a handshake a second later. Ray stared at that hand, thinking that this might be the only reaching-out hand he was ever going to find, so he shook it.

But when Fraser tried to pull him into one of those manly half-hug things, Ray slammed his own hand up in between them. Their partnership may have ended, but they still had that telepathy thing going, because in his head, Ray shouted _You don’t have the right to do that_ , and Fraser nodded once and stepped back, his shoulders stiff as a board.

“Take care. Keep in touch, Ray,” Fraser said, like they were going to be pen pals or something.

“Pleasure working with you,” Ray snarled.

He didn’t look back.

It took him nearly six days to get back to Chicago, burned out and bearded, deafened by its noise and choking on its already-muggy air. Ray only cried once on the trip, on the plane from Edmonton to Chicago, and it wasn’t really about Fraser at all. There was a baby crying a few rows ahead of him, and babies set him off sometimes. They just sounded so helpless, and there was nothing he could do; even if they were his kids, he’d just have to fumble around, trying to figure out what they needed, experimenting with burps, bottles, diapers, and toys until something clicked.

And then it became about Fraser because nothing clicked anymore.

In theory, it should have been simple — a clean break. With Stella it was complicated; they kept going back to each other long after they both knew it was toxic. Stella stopped loving Ray, but she still wanted him, like she wanted a back scratcher or a vibrator. Fraser, on the other hand, apparently didn’t love him or want him, so it should have been simple. Or at least simpl _er_ ; Ray would have settled for simpler.

But it wasn’t.

He resumed the single life he’d had after Stella and before Fraser, and it was enough. Mostly. He went back to the 2-7, this time with his own name, and threw himself into his work. He was still a cop, a good one (maybe even better without Fraser since he didn’t have so many wacky cases, and he always knew his back-up was armed). As much as the job sucked sometimes, it gave him what he needed because he was doing good work.

Ray tried to move on, get a life. He worked, ate, slept, watched the Cubs every chance he got. Plus there was the turtle. And dancing. Ray met a lot of women dancing, women who smiled at him just right and smelled incredible. He went home with a few of them, though he never brought them back to his place. He’d lay them out on their beds and kiss them, taking off their clothing piece by piece. Then he’d pleasure them with his fingers or his mouth, savouring the way they shuddered and moaned because it was something he could do, something he was good at, something they wanted him for. It got him going, making them come, and the sex was great, but he could never finish without thinking about Fraser.

One night, Ray danced with a couple, Tim and Maria, who both wanted to take him home — some kind of open marriage, they said. Ray had never done a three-way, but Tim was tall with dark hair, and Maria was a slender blonde, so he figured they were his types, and he did say he’d try anything. In their king-sized bed, Tim kissed Maria while she stroked him, and Ray licked her clit till she came. Then she took her hand off her husband and closed her eyes, and a second later, she was asleep.

Tim said this happened a lot, but it was okay because she’d wake up again soon, and she liked to watch. Ray was confused for about half a second, until Tim started to kiss him. Then he was on board, since there was a stubbled chin grazing his and large, warm hands wandering all over his body.

“Can I top you?” Tim breathed into Ray’s mouth.

Ray thought about it for a second then nodded, but told him he’d never done this before.

Tim promised to steer him around the curves, and he did, opening Ray up with slick fingers like he had all the time in the world, guiding him into a position where he could hold on to the headboard, asking him constantly if everything was okay, chuckling softly when he nudged Ray’s prostrate and Ray gasped sharply.

“Pretty good, huh,” Tim said into Ray’s back.

Tim rolled the condom on and eased himself in slowly. His hand reached around for Ray’s half-erect cock and stroked gently as he started to move. Ray forgot where he was, who he was with; he forgot about Maria watching with heat in her eyes; he forgot to wish it was Fraser grunting and thrusting behind him; he forgot his own name as he came so hard his eyes crossed. A moment later, Tim shuddered as well, and then he was pulling out, pulling away, lying down next to his wife.

Ray tried to get up, thinking they’d probably want to be alone, but Maria tugged him close, put him between her and Tim, and Ray slept that way, warm and peaceful for the first time since the good nights in the tent, until there was a coffee smell and Maria was making eggs and writing down their phone number.

That afternoon it caught up with him, and Ray wept because he’d liked it so much, and it could have been so good if Fraser had only said _yes_.

Ray went out with Maria and Tim almost every weekend for four months. It was always the same: they’d get dinner, have a few drinks, go dancing, and fuck, and in the morning they’d have eggs. It was like having a girlfriend except there were always three of them and Ray was more attracted to her husband than to her. But they trusted each other; hell, maybe they even loved each other, and it was good for a while.

Until Ray realized it wasn’t like having a girlfriend at all because he couldn’t tell anybody, and he was having panic attacks every time his mother asked him if he was seeing someone. So Ray broke it off and went back to being alone.

Eventually, being alone didn’t hurt anymore. Or maybe it just didn’t hurt so long as he didn’t look too close or think about it too much. And that was when Welsh hauled him into his office and offered him a promotion.


	2. Lieutenant Kowalski

Ray wasn’t sure he had heard that correctly. “This is a joke, right?”

“God’s honest truth, Kowalski.”

“But what if something happens?”

“Nothing’s going to—”

“Stuff happens here every day. Weird, kooky stuff. Stuff I probably can’t handle.”

“Detective, you’ll be—”

“Come on, Lieutenant. With my luck, this place’ll be full of Tickle Me Elmos stuffed with stolen cat livers inside of an hour.”

Welsh gave him one of those looks he used to give Fraser all the time — the one that said _Remind me how I got saddled with you again_ — and shook his head. “It’s only four days, Detective,” he said for the third time. “A week at most.”

“A week?!”

“At _most_. You’ll be fine.”

“But—”

Welsh held up a hand. “Detective. Ray. Do you want the gig, or should I call someone in from the 2-6 instead?”

Ray wasn’t sure a lieutenant had ever asked him whether he wanted something before, except in the _You want I should put you on traffic_ kind of way, and those questions were almost always rhetorical. It froze him up for a minute.

“Because I can,” Welsh went on when Ray didn’t reply. “But I put your name forward, and the folks downtown agreed with me: this’d be a good opportunity for you. Won’t be long till you’re looking for a quieter life, you know.”

Finally, Ray found his voice. It was his smart-ass voice, but a voice regardless. “You saying your job’s quiet, Lieu? Never seemed that way to me.”

Great thing about Welsh was that he could send smart-ass right back. “Yeah, well, you won’t have Ray Kowalski working for you, so it’ll be quiet.” He almost smirked, but then he grew serious again, wheeling his chair closer to the desk and leaning on his elbows. “Look, it’ll be four days in the middle of January. No full moon, no conventions or festivals to attract the weirdoes, no holiday weekend. Shitty-ass weather. It’ll be quiet, trust me. Hell, trust yourself, Kowalski. Aren’t you always saying you got to trust your gut? What’s your gut saying?”

Boy, did Ray _not_ want to go there. “Okay. Where do I start?”

~~~

Two weeks later, Ray had a greater respect for Welsh’s job, not to mention his lung capacity. He’d always thought Welsh chose to bellow, but it turns out it’s nearly impossible to command a squad room without sometimes sounding like a pissed-off mama bear. Not that Welsh was motherly or anything, as Ray explained when Welsh glared at him for saying that out loud.

“Papa bear. More like _papa_...” Ray left that sentence to die and suddenly became very interested in examining his bracelet.

One thing he didn’t expect was how different the bullpen looked from Welsh’s doorway. He’d never noticed before how chaotic it was, with scraps of paper everywhere and posters all over the walls. Plus, his own desk looked weird from here, like a loner. Kind of pathetic, really, compared to the other detectives, who were all across from their partners.

He shook the feeling off and tried out the hollering mama/papa bear thing. He shouted for Anita, the new Francesca, and she was there in a second with the files he needed, so hey, yelling worked good. After lunch, he tried it again on Dezzy Sinclair, who was working with Dewey since Jack was home with his wife because she’d had to have an emergency C-section last week. Dezzy didn’t know Ray from a hole in the sidewalk; when Ray hollered across the room about details missing from Dezzy’s arrest report, Dezzy jumped about a foot and a half. Ray wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but Welsh seemed pleased.   

“Not bad,” he said on his last day before going away. “You got the new guy shaking in his boots, plus you fixed the paperwork and did it right for once. Nice to know that all Constable Fraser’s hard work is finally paying off, huh?”

Ray made a non-committal noise and, on his way out the door that night, he tried not to pay attention to how unfamiliar the squad room — _his_ squad room — looked when nobody in it was wearing red.

~~~

“Ignore that,” Ray breathed into Fraser’s mouth when the phone started ringing. He shifted on the couch so he could get his hands between them and unbutton Fraser’s tunic. Fraser was warm, always so warm, underneath, and he’d skipped the belt thing and the Henley tonight because Ray’d asked him to.

“Fraser, touch me,” he murmured, and, finally, his zipper was down and his cock was in Fraser’s strong, capable hands. Ray moaned a little in relief and tried to return the favour, but suddenly Fraser was up off the couch.

“What is it?” asked Ray. “What’s wrong?”

Fraser’s voice was firm and urgent. “Ray, the phone.”

“Let them leave a message.”

“It’s your duty, Ray. Lieutenant Welsh is counting on you. Don’t let me down.”

~~~

Ray gasped and awoke in his bed, hard-on fading fast, dream details already fuzzy.

The phone was still ringing. He fumbled for it in the dark. “Yeah?”

“CPD dispatch for Acting Lieutenant Kowalski of District 27.”

Ray squinted at the clock and determined that the lady was way too polite for 3:48 AM. “Go ahead,” he replied through a yawn.

He managed to get the light on and a pen and paper in his hand while she explained about a fresh stiff by the lake. Once he had the location written down, he stepped into yesterday’s jeans and pulled them up one-handed.

“You better get down there right away,” the dispatcher advised. “The patrolman who found him’s pretty green, Lieutenant.”

Ray’s stomach gave a weird jolt at the title. “Right,” he said. “Ten minutes.”

~~~

 _Pretty green_ didn’t even begin to cover Jacobs, though he did look like he might start puking at any second. He couldn’t take his eyes off the lump covered with a grey blanket by his feet, and Ray could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped — Christ, he looked young.

Ray felt a little green himself when Jacobs called him Lieutenant, but it helped that he could hear Welsh’s voice in his head: _It’s not that different when you’re on a scene. Just pay attention and try not to look too stupid in front of the uniforms. This is my reputation at stake here, Kowalski._

He took a deep breath. “What do we got?” he asked, and it sounded normal. Confident, even. Good, good.

Jacobs began to fill him in, pointing to another uniform about thirty feet away, who was taking a statement from the civilian who’d discovered the body. Ray did a double-take; the guy had dark hair and a bright red ski jacket.

“My partner,” Jacobs was saying, “he went across the street to get us some coffee. I know we aren’t supposed to split up on the night beat, Sir, but it’d been quiet, dead quiet, and cold—”

Ray waved the apology away, briefly wishing he had a partner to bring him coffee, then jerked his head toward the witness. “He just come up to the vehicle?”

“Yes, Sir. I then accompanied him—”

Jacobs kept talking, but Ray stopped listening; something was queer. He glanced back down at the body, then scanned the scene. The extra uniforms he’d requested had arrived, they were laying out tape, and the forensics van was just pulling up— that was it.

“So he was like this when you found him?” Ray asked, cutting off whatever Jacobs was saying.

“What?”

Ray pointed impatiently. “Your dead guy. He was already in the blanket? Because forensics just got here, so they couldn’t have—”

“Uh, no. Sir. The witness and I, we—”

Ray’s eyebrows shot up. “ _You_ covered him?”

“He— he was naked, Sir, and the blanket was in the trunk—”

“But you found him here?”

“No, we—”

Ray’s jaw dropped. “You _moved_ him, too?”

Jacobs gulped down at his shiny shoes. “Yes, Sir,” he mumbled.

“You contaminated the scene,” Ray told him sharply. “That’s 101, Officer, what the hell were you thinking?”

A small part of Ray couldn’t believe that he’d just pulled rank like it was nothing, but the rest of him was pissed. Jacobs, meanwhile, looked like he was about to cry.

“Lieutenant—”

Ray exhaled a short sigh, and the anger went as fast as it’d come. “Don’t worry about it,” he said quickly, then winced as he heard Sam Franklin’s voice coming through his own. “What’s done’s done, I’ll handle it. This your first body?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Ray scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw, feeling old and tired. “All right, get out of here. But write your report before you go. Every detail, right away. Type it up, have it on Wel— uh, _my_ desk by nine, got it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Jacobs repeated, nodding his head so fast Ray was afraid it might pop off. “And, uh... I’m sorry, Sir. I understand there’ll be repercussions for my actions.”

“Reper—? Oh.” _Try not to look too stupid in front of the uniforms, Kowalski_. “We’ll deal with that in the morning. Do your write-up, get some sleep if you can.”

As Jacobs headed towards his patrol car, Ray went straight to the forensics guys. They seemed to understand Jacobs’ first body freak-out thing, which surprised Ray a little, but he thanked them and walked over to the witness, glad to see that Jacobs’ partner wasn’t nearly as inexperienced as Jacobs himself. He’d led the civilian to a bench, and Ray could tell he’d already gotten everything he needed from him and was just letting the guy talk himself down. Smart, since Ray could see him shaking from twenty feet away — things got pretty freaky on this side of the yellow tape if you weren’t used to it.  

“I just can’t believe it,” John Q. Public was saying. “It’s like something out of a movie, you know? I just— I—”

The uniformed officer nodded sympathetically and stood when he saw Ray approach. He was a tall man with dark skin and hair that was sprinkled with grey around his temples.

“Acting Lieutenant Ray Kowalski,” Ray said with surprising ease. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Warren Laurie,” the cop replied in a deep, musical voice, and shook Ray’s hand. “And this is Marcus Nickel,” he added, gesturing to the man beside him.

Ray greeted Nickel, who looked nothing like Fraser up close, then pulled Laurie aside. Laurie confirmed what Ray’d already guessed: there wasn’t much point in Nickel sticking around. 

“Mr. Nickel?” Laurie said softly. “We’re all done here, you’re free to go.”

Nickel looked up and met Ray’s eyes for the first time. Right away, Ray knew two things: (1) this guy had nothing to do with how the dead guy ended up dead, and (B) this guy shouldn’t be alone tonight.

“Officer Laurie will drive you home,” Ray said. “You got somebody waiting for you?”

Nickel blinked slowly, like he’d forgotten how to do it. “My partner.”

Ray offered his cell. “You want to give him a call, let him know you’re on your way?”

“I wouldn’t want to wake her. Sabrina’s pregnant, she needs her rest.”

“Okay,” Ray agreed, determined not to make a big deal of his mistake. He helped Nickel stand, and Laurie guided him to a squad car.

Ray grabbed a pair of gloves from one of the forensics guys and tucked his own into his coat pocket. A wind kicked up off the lake, making the skin of Ray’s fingers tighten uncomfortably under the latex. He shivered and pulled out his small Maglite as he headed towards the scene.

The thin layer of snow crunched under his feet as he followed the drag marks. Jacobs and Nickel had moved the body — Christ on a bike — nearly fifteen feet. You’d think that somewhere during that trip Jacobs’ brain would have woke up a little, Ray thought with annoyance.

But, then again, Ray had carried a bloody suicide note in his pocket for half an hour the first time he found a body.  

He showed the trail to the tech guys, who went over to take lots of flashy pictures of where the body should have been left, while the forensic ID team started removing the blanket. Ray closed his eyes, took a deep breath, though one body on the scene was almost always better than a bunch in the morgue, then opened his eyes again and took out his pen.

 _Young_ was the first word that appeared in Ray’s notebook, but right away he scratched it out, replaced it with _short_. The guy was solid — stocky, but not built. Ray guessed early forties, and he was in good shape: didn’t seem like he’d been in the water long, though that was hard to tell with the water as cold as it was. There was nothing obvious as far as cause of death, no bullet wounds or strangulation marks. His eyes were closed; guy looked peaceful, like the frozen ground beside Lake Michigan was a penthouse suite at the Ritz.

Ray moved closer suddenly. He didn’t need to — there’d be photos — or particularly want to, even, but he crouched down and shone his light in the guy’s pale, boyish face. Then, like it was moving by itself, his hand reached out and picked a dead leaf off the corpse’s cheek.

Ray studied the face for a minute longer before he sat back on his heels and wrote, _I know this guy._

~~~

How he knew the dead guy, though, was going to have to wait. Ray hung around the scene till he was sure everything was under control and his head was aching for caffeine. It might have been easier to go straight to the station, since he was due there in a couple of hours, but Ray decided to go home, have a shower, and brew some real coffee first. A lieutenant cannot live on station sludge alone, Ray thought as he climbed into the GTO. Well, maybe Welsh could, but Welsh popped antacids like they were candy.

The drive home was quick; thankfully it was still a bit early for rush hour. Ray stumbled through the door of his apartment, removed his holster, and went straight to the coffee pot. His answering machine was blinking.

“Quieter life, my ass,” he muttered, and he ignored it until the coffee was perking and he had a cold glass of water in his hand. While the tape was rewinding, he checked on the turtle.

“Probably dispatch,” Ray told him. “Probably took them two or three times to wake me up, since...”

He trailed off as he remembered his dream, then he shook himself and pressed play on the answering machine, hoping to clear his head.

It didn’t work.

“Uh, hello, Ray. It’s Benton Fraser. I apologize for calling so late, but—”

Ray had a split second of relief that he’d already put his gun down when the glass of water slipped out of his fingers and shattered at his feet. His brain and body had gone numb.

When he came out of his coma, Fraser was still talking. “—professional. Please call as soon as you can. Day or night. Thank you, Ray.”

The machine beeped and clicked, and Ray slowly became aware that his socks were wet. He crouched down and started gathering the largest pieces of glass he could see, though there weren’t many. Most of it was glittering against the hardwood floor, which was starting to turn orange as the sun rose. His eyes blurred, and he was looking at the sky on the last morning of his hare-brained quest to find the hand of Franklin.

Ray squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a few breaths. Since that morning, dreams were the only contact Ray had with Fraser. Which, really, was a good thing because half of those dreams ended with fucking and the other half ended with a TKO, and, even after eighteen months, Ray still wasn’t sure which one he’d prefer.

He stood up and went to the kitchen to get some paper towels, deleting the message on his way by.


	3. The Case

The bullpen was still mostly empty when Ray got there. Anita hovered behind him as he unlocked Welsh’s door.

“Watch out for—” she said suddenly.

Something crinkled under Ray’s feet. “What the—?”

“—Jacobs’ report,” Anita finished. She winced when he looked up. “Sorry.”

Ray stood and wiped the pages on his jeans. “It’s okay. When did he drop this off?”

“About twenty minutes ago. He was going to wait around for you, but I think he was sick.”

“Yeah, I’d buy that.” Ray read the first paragraph — Jacobs had really busted out the thesaurus — as he moved around the desk and sat down, pulling his spare glasses from the top drawer.

When he glanced up, Anita was still there. “What’d I forget?” he asked.

“Duty roster,” she answered immediately. “And the Monday morning meeting is in—”

“Half an hour. Right. Thanks, Anita.”

“No problem. I, uh. I brought you a coffee,” she went on in a rush. “If you don’t want it, it’s okay. I was going by anyway, and, I just thought, first full day and all?”

“Somebody found a body at four this morning, there’s no way I’m turning this down,” Ray told her, accepting the Styrofoam cup and taking a sip. “Whoa, what is this?”

“Hazelnut. Two sugar. Is it okay?”

“Are you kidding me, it’s greatness,” he replied, grinning at her. “I think I’m in love. Thanks, Anita.”

She blushed. “You’re welcome.”

Ray allowed himself one more sweet gulp before springing into action. “Okay. Duty roster. Meeting. Right. Where’d I put the...?”

“Here.” Anita passed him two folders on her way out the door. “Good luck.”

Ray pushed his glasses up higher and got to work.

~~~

Running the Major Crimes Monday morning meeting was a lot better than sitting through it, especially when Welsh had pretty much everything set up already. Everybody checked in, easy peasy, and Ray had just one new case to assign.

“Dewey. Sinclair. There’s a body in the basement, about four hours old. Mort’s not in till noon today, so I need you to ID him ASAP.”

“Yes, Sir,” Dezzy said right away.

“Aw, come on, Ray,” Dewey protested. “I just had my breakfast. Don’t make me inhale formaldehyde this early in the morning.”

“I’ll formaldehyde you if you don’t get down there.” The cops around the table snorted with laughter. “Okay, folks, that’s it,” Ray went on. “Try and have a good week. You need me, you know where I’ll be.”

The detectives shuffled out of the room, but Dewey lingered. “We’ve already got a full load, Ray. And this morning we’re supposed to be looking into corruption at the—”

“Possible homicide takes priority, you know that.” Ray stood up, gathering loose sheets of paper into his folder.

“Yeah, but—”

He set the file down with a quiet thump. “What do you want, Tom?”

“I want this case to go to somebody else.”

“Like who? You and Jack have the best solve rate—”

“Next to you.”

Ray looked away. “That’s not—”

“And Dezzy’s not Jack,” Dewey added in an undertone, stepping closer. “I may as well be working alone.”

Ray glanced over Dewey’s shoulder to where the new guy was shuffling his feet in the doorway. “Come on, he can’t be that bad.”

“Okay, he’s not that bad,” Dewey admitted. “But we don’t gel the same way. And—” Dewey dropped his voice even lower. “I’ve got to meet a snitch in an hour, real twitchy guy. Dez wasn’t even going to go with me. If I don’t show, we might never get a break in the Hayes corruption case.”

Ray thought for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “Here’s what we’re going to do: you ID the body and I’ll take Sinclair off your hands. The two of us’ll work the dead guy for now.”

“Thanks, Ray.”

Ray held up a finger. “Don’t thank me yet. I’m trying to run the station here, so if something big comes up, I’m handing him right back. Deal?”

Dewey nodded. “Deal.”

“Good. Now amscray. Get John Doe a name.”

~~~

Anita followed Ray into the office again, setting a pink memo down on his desk. “Ray, a Ben-ton Fraser called for you? He left this number.”

Ray froze. “He, uh. Did he say what he wanted?”

“No. Just asked you to call him back.” Anita peered at him with worried eyes. “Is something wrong? You look a little pale.”

Ray shook his head. “No. No. Throw that away, will you? If he calls back, tell him I’m...” He shrugged. “I don’t know, make something up.”

She swiped the paper off his desk and crumpled it up. “Lieutenant Welsh gets me to say he’s ‘indisposed,’ does that work?”

That sounded like a Fraser kind of word. “Sure. Thanks, Anita.”

Ray picked up the duty roster. Dewey was right; he and Sinclair did have a full load. Peterson and Hook had space, but they hadn’t worked a murder since the metropolitan zoo disaster of 1999, and Welsh had nearly popped an artery over that; two years older, he’d probably stroke out if Ray put those bozos on a John Doe that turned into a homicide.

Ray hadn’t been assigned a case in two weeks, what with training to cover for Welsh and all, so the only things open on his desk were a couple of those bank robberies where he just knew the perps were long gone. Unless they ran a red light and confessed (or ran out of money and did it again), those files would gather dust until kingdom come, as Ray’s mother would put it. Whatever the hell that meant.

With a little sigh, he scrawled the new case number beside Sinclair’s name and added _with Kowalski_ , hoping Welsh would understand.

Then he picked up Jacobs’ report, only to drop its third (third?!) page. He scooted under his desk and grabbed it, skimmed it, and laughed.

“Aw, for crying out loud.” It was a self-written reprimand. Like the ones Fraser used to—

—something clicked in Ray’s brain.

He left the office and went straight to the stairs, pausing just long enough to hear Anita tell someone on the phone that the Major Crimes division couldn’t provide protective custody for their cat, even if the neighbour’s dog was a Rottweiler. He shook his head and made a mental note to tell Welsh that the kooky cases still came to the 2-7 regardless of who was in charge, then he hurried down to the morgue to talk to Dewey.

~~~

Unfortunately, Dezzy was alone down there, manipulating the dead guy’s inky fingertips. He glanced up, his face a mask of concentration, as the door swung shut behind Ray.

“Dewey go already?” Ray asked.

“Yeah, his guy called and pushed up the meet. Tom asked me to tell you, but...” He gestured at the body. “Mr. Doe here is being a little uncooperative. This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.”

“Yeah, dead guys are tricky.” Ray shuddered. “You need any help?” He hoped the answer was no. John Doe didn’t look any less familiar under the white-blue lights of the morgue, but that didn’t mean he wanted to touch him.

Dezzy’s tongue was poking out of his mouth as he lifted the stiff hand. “No, I’m almost— shoot!” John Doe’s thumbprint smudged as the card slipped and fluttered to the floor. Dezzy picked it up, winced, and went to get a new card.

Ray noticed a pile of them in the trash can. He closed his eyes and bit his tongue. No wonder this was taking so long. “Let me help,” he said finally, through gritted teeth.

Together they finished the disgusting job in about sixty seconds. As they headed back up to the bullpen, Ray asked if Dezzy thought the stiff looked familiar.

Dezzy shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

Ray wasn’t surprised; he’d been hoping to ask Dewey, anyhow. While Dezzy scanned the prints and the database went to work, Ray paced behind him, drumming his fingers against his thigh. Anita was having a quiet phone conversation with her back turned to them; Ray wondered if it was the cat person again.

“Got him,” Dezzy announced.

“Good. Print it. Uh, please,” Ray added awkwardly.

“Not much to see,” Dezzy said, pressing the page into his hand. “I’ll check the Federal database, then see if we have anything else on paper, maybe something that didn’t make it into the computer yet.”

“Yeah, you do that,” replied Ray, his eyes on the page. He recognized the name but not the crime. 

Frank Zuko. Manslaughter. February, 1996.

The vic had the same last name. Zuko’d put in a guilty plea and got a light sentence. Really light: Ray knew a deal when he saw one. No info on who he might’ve ratted on, though. Arresting officer was—

Ray flew back to his office. He yanked open the personnel drawer and rifled through to the back of the alphabet. Vecchio’s file felt lighter, thinner than it did the last time he had it in his hand. He spread its contents over Welsh’s desk, and it didn’t take him long to see that it wasn’t his imagination: pages were missing. A lot of them. More than a few reports said _continued on page 2_ , but there was no page 2. Other notes were handwritten — Ray recognized Fraser’s shorthand — but the typed reports that should have transcribed them were nowhere to be found.

Ray adjusted his glasses and went back to the cabinet. Some of Vecchio’s missing pages were in Fraser’s file (Ray imagined he had Frannie’s crazy filing theories to thank for that), but not all of them, not by a long shot. He pulled the chair up to the desk, started trying to sort everything out.

“Uh, Sir?” Ray jerked his head up. Dezzy was standing in the doorway with a thin file in his hand. “This was all I could find. Federal database is still chugging away.”

Ray beckoned him in, pulled another chair around to the side of the desk. “Sit down, help me sort. Stuff that says Ray Vecchio goes in this pile. It, uh, got messed up somehow.”

Dezzy nodded and handed him the other file. More detail, but not much. Vecchio’s chicken scratch — again, the typed copies were gone — about extortion, but nothing official. The file looked more like a disassembled diary than a record of police work.

“Well, here’s why he’s not in jail,” said Dezzy suddenly. He slid a piece of paper in Ray’s direction.

It was a typed letter to the Illinois Parole Board, signed by Detective First Grade, Raymond Vecchio. Ray read it carefully. Debt to society, regrets what he did, pillar of the community... typical things a cop tells the board when they think the guy should be released. He moved to set it in the Vecchio pile, but something felt hinky. He hesitated, skimmed the letter again. His eyes settled on the signature at the bottom, then darted back up to the date: December 18, 1998.

“Holy shit,” he said softly.

Everything that came from Ray Vecchio in December, 1998 had come from him, but he’d never seen this before.

Ray shoved the desk chair back and jumped to his feet, hollering for Anita. “I need records, paperwork from Ray Vecchio’s cases. Scanned or hard copy, I don’t care, just bring me a few of his reports. Some from before the fall of ’97, and some from the fall of ’97 to the spring of ’99. I don’t care what cases, I just need to see the paperwork, you got that?”

She looked bewildered, but she nodded, her thick blonde curls bobbing by her chin. “On it.”

Ray whirled around. “Help her, would you?” he barked at Dezzy.

Dezzy tripped over the garbage can in his hurry to leave the room.

Ray paced in front of the desk till he was dizzy. He had to see the signatures. He had to know—

“Context,” he muttered. Welsh might know, but Welsh was off the grid for the next few days, so Ray was it.

He strode across the squad room to his own desk and dug through the drawer on the bottom right. Under his copy of _Canadian Impressionism_ , he found his red books — his personal notes. It was a long shot, but it could be that Welsh had shoved the letter under his nose, got him to sign it, and he wrote something down about it. He flicked through the notebook at the very bottom of the pile, the oldest one he had, till he found a few entries dated for the winter of ’98.

_Huckabee: Found guns in crate of cabbage. Must tell mom that F. is a fan. She’ll like that. ~~Stella never~~ _

_Jenkins: Finally got F. to admit he was wrong. Gloated. F.’s got no rhythm but his voice is nice. ~~Dancing’s out but maybe karaoke~~_

_Miller: F. tracked cinnamon 40 blocks & caught murderer. Freak. Bought him chocolate milkshake b/c he never had one before. Made him smile._

_Warfield: Seeing F. all thrashed, ~~I realized~~ no, I already — what am I going to do? He doesn’t and we can’t. ~~Mute~~ moot point._

Ray flipped a few more pages, then slammed the notebook shut. “Dammit.”

There was nothing. Nothing about a parole letter, nothing about Frank Zuko, nothing about Ray Vecchio. Nothing. He closed his eyes and tried to think back, to remember. But all he could see, and apparently all he’d been seeing at the time, was—

Ray groaned and put his head in his hands. The fact of the matter was Fraser would remember, but Ray really _really_ did not want to talk to Fraser. Not about this. Not about anything.

What would he say? _Hey, Fraser, how have you been? Still an asshole? That’s great. Look, I just have this little question about that time somebody happened to forge Vecchio’s signature, which I was forging already, and—_

A small mountain of papers descended on top of Ray’s red book. “Took me a little while to rustle them up,” said Anita, “but what I’ve got here’s a good range: one from ’93, two from ’95 and ’96, and two more from ’98 and ’99. Will that be enough?”

Ray shot her a quick smile. “I hope so. Thanks.”

The differences between his Vecchio autograph and Vecchio’s actual signature were subtle: a little extra curl in the ‘o’, a loop in the ‘h’, a slightly sharper point on the ‘V’. Short of Vecchio’s family, probably nobody would even notice, which gave Ray a weird sense of pride, even after more than an year.

He looked at the letter to the parole board again. This signature was different, but it was close enough to Ray’s version of Vecchio’s John Hancock that he hadn’t noticed at first. So maybe his pal the forger was more used to Ray Kowalski as Ray Vecchio as opposed to Ray Vecchio as Ray Vecchio. But then again, maybe not. Vecchio’s signature wasn’t that difficult; Ray’d been able to fake it.

Dezzy came over to Ray’s desk. “I can’t get into the FBI files, sir.”

Ray started gathering up the old reports. “Yeah, well, the Feds aren’t exactly known for sharing.”

“No, it’s just that everything’s sealed up due to an ongoing investigation.” Dezzy held up a scrap of paper. “This is the guy in charge. Agent Paul Schuster.”

“Get him on the horn?”

“Tried. Left a message.”

Ray headed back to his office, Dezzy on his heels. “Anything in our files about known associates?”

“For Schuster?” Ray threw a disbelieving look over his shoulder. “Oh, for Zuko,” Dezzy corrected himself. “I didn’t see any. We’ve got an address, though. I’m good to go.”

“No, we’ll go together in an hour. You keep working away. Find me some leads.” Ray handed him everything that he’d had on Welsh’s desk and looked pointedly at the door. After a second, Dezzy picked up the hint and left.

Ray pushed the door closed behind him and leaned back against it with a sigh. He knew he’d sounded like an ass, but he needed a door between him and the rest of the world. At least for a few minutes. He needed some space to think.

His brain was dancing in jagged circles. It couldn’t be a coincidence that some guy from Vecchio’s past showed up dead and Fraser called on the same day. Ray bounced his head off the window once, twice, three times. Then he opened the door again and asked Anita if she still had Fraser’s number.

He eyes widened and she grimaced, looking stricken. “I— you said to throw it away, so I used it to spit out my gum. I— I’m really sorry!”

Ray waved a hand in her direction. “No, it’s my bad. Don’t worry about it. Just— if he calls again, patch him through, okay? Or tell him my cell number’s the same.”

Ray almost had the door closed when she spoke again. “Um, are you all right in there? I thought I heard banging.”

Ray laughed a little. “Just my head, Anita.” He winked at her. “So, nothing important.”

~~~

Frank Zuko’s last known address turned out to be not far from the Vecchio house, though how far, Ray wasn’t sure. He’d only been there a few times, and that was ages ago now. But it was in the same nice neighbourhood, one of those friendly communities that somehow pop up in big, dirty cities like Chicago. There was a big Catholic church on one corner, mom-and-pop shops, kids chasing each other and throwing snowballs on the sidewalks. It reminded Ray a little of the part of town where he grew up, though from the store names, he figured the kids would be shouting in Italian instead of Polish.

On the way, Dezzy filled Ray in on the Zuko trial.

“It was pretty open and shut: the victim was his sister, and he copped to shooting her by accident. But she had a bruise on her face that the prosecution tried to exploit. Said it was evidence of an aggravated assault prior to the shooting, so—”

“So they tried to argue for intent.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t work, though.”

“No. He got off easy. States’ Attorney’s office wasn’t able to tell me why, though.”

“Hm,” said Ray. “Did Vecchio testify?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask. Probably. Arresting officer usually does, right?”

Ray nodded and parked the GTO on the street in front of a tall hedge that surrounded a manor house on a sprawling property.

“He lived here?” asked Dezzy.

“Apparently. Lock your door.” Ray slammed his shut and headed up to the house. He rang the bell and waited till a slender shape moved on the other side of the frosted glass. Ray introduced them, flashing his badge.

“We’re here to talk to someone about Frank Zuko,” Dezzy added.

“Oh, no,” the woman said with a sigh. “Come on in.” She left the door wide open and headed into a room on the left of the foyer.

Dezzy shot Ray a puzzled look. Ray shrugged and followed her to a large, elegant dining room that reminded him of formal dinners at Stella’s parents’ house. 

“I’m Frank’s ex-wife, Andrea. Have a seat,” she said, gesturing at the square cherry wood table with tall, straight-backed chairs. “Can you get you gentlemen some coffee or anything?”

“No, we’re good,” Ray said quickly, sliding onto a chair that was just as uncomfortable as it looked. He had to reach over and steady Dezzy’s chair when it teetered beside him.

Andrea sat across from them with a lot more grace than either of the detectives had managed. “So what’s he done this time?”

Dezzy opened his mouth, but Ray shot him a look, and he closed it again. “I’m sorry, Ms. ...?”

“I kept his name.”

“All right. Ms. Zuko. What makes you think Mr. Zuko’s done something?”

She gave him a wry smile, but stayed silent. Ray leaned forward.

“Do you have any children?” asked Dezzy suddenly. Ray pretended he wasn’t startled and annoyed by the question.

“Three.”

“They’re not here now, are they?”

Andrea looked at Dezzy like he was a bit dim. “They’re at school,” she explained patiently. “And Frank’s not here either, so it’s not like they’ll see you leading him away in handcuffs.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?” Ray asked quickly.

“Christmas. He stayed till the 28th. He was supposed to take the kids this weekend, but he never showed. Never called, nothing. Typical.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her cardigan pocket. “Do you mind?”

Ray shrugged. “Your house.”

“Not technically.”

Beside him, Dezzy was taking notes. Ray waited until he was done and Andrea had had a few drags of her smoke before he nodded at Dezzy, who spoke like he was reading from a script. “Ma’am, I’m very sorry to inform you that your ex-husband is dead.”

She stared, first at Dezzy, then at Ray, through the blue haze for a long moment, like she was trying to see if he was lying to her. Then she blinked and pulled her cigarette back to her mouth. “Huh,” she said finally, blowing smoke at the ceiling. “I guess in that case it is my house.”

Years of undercover work let Ray keep his face blank, though his eyes narrowed somewhat. “You don’t seem terribly upset,” he said evenly.

Andrea seemed to give this some thought. “I guess I’m not.” She sounded almost surprised.

“Might be shock,” Dezzy suggested. Ray suppressed the urge to kick him under the table.

“Maybe,” Andrea replied absently. “I don’t know, though.” She smoked the rest of her cigarette in thoughtful silence. Ray let it stretch, missing his former habit for the first time in years.

“How did he die?” she asked Ray, her voice finally betraying something like the emotions of someone who’d just received bad news. 

“At this time, we don’t know,” he answered. “We only found the body this morning. Would you be willing to come to the station with us now, offer positive identification, maybe answer a few more questions?”

“Of course,” Andrea replied right away. “I just have to—” She stood suddenly and walked briskly across to the phone in the foyer. Ray overheard her talking to someone about picking up the kids from school.

Dezzy turned to him. “What do you—” he began, Ray shook his head, mouthing the word _Later_ , feeling a bit like he was talking to Diefenbaker. 

Andrea returned to the dining room a few minutes later. She’d been crying. Ray stood, gestured that she should lead the way, and he drove them back to the station in silence.

~~~

Dezzy took Andrea Zuko downstairs while Ray put fresh batteries in his tape recorder and poured himself a fresh cup of station house sludge. Dezzy came back just as Ray was taking the first awful sip. He led the pale former Mrs. Zuko to the couch in Welsh’s office and went to get her some water.

“Are you all right, Ms. Zuko?” Ray asked, leaning against the desk.

She shook her head without a word. For all her calmness before, she looked mighty shaken now. Ray got that — the morgue made death real — but he still hesitated to blame her former reaction on shock alone. It had seemed almost like getting bad news from the police was normal for her. Maybe, with a husband in jail, it was.

When Dezzy returned, Ray started recording. They got some names from her, people who worked with Frank, people who might have had a reason to kill him, assuming he was killed, people who knew where he liked to hang out, what he liked to do, people who could help them establish a more exact timeframe.

Ray asked about Irene, Frank’s sister and accidental murder victim. Andrea did believe it was an accident, even though she wasn’t there that night. She’d taken the kids — hers and Irene’s — out because Frank had business.

“Business. What kind of business?” Ray repeated.

She didn’t answer. _Okay,_ he thought. He changed gears. “When did you two separate?”

“Right after he went to prison,” Andrea replied promptly. “I told him when we got engaged that that was my limit. That and if he—” She closed her mouth with an audible snap.

“If he what?” asked Dezzy, but Ray knew she wasn’t going to answer that.

“If he hit you,” Ray said. “Or the kids. Right?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Did he?”

“No.”

“But he would have?”

She looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. I heard from Charlie that he slapped Irene.” Dezzy took a breath, but Ray glanced at him again. He knew Andrea wasn’t finished. “I figured it was just a matter of time,” she finished after a moment.

“You did the right thing,” Ray said softly. “You drew a line and you stood by it. That’s strong.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” she muttered.

“Who’s Charlie?” Ray asked in the same tone, but her walls were back up, and she went silent again. “Okay,” he said quietly, and looked to Dezzy to take over.

Five minutes later, they had the address of Frank’s apartment and a couple more names. Dezzy offered her a ride home, but Ray interrupted.

“Sorry, wait. Ms. Zuko? Do you know, or do you know if Frank knew Detective Ray Vecchio of this department?”

A sad smile crossed her face. “Yeah. Ray and Frank went to school together. They had a thing ever since they were kids. Hated each other. And when Ray and Irene started dating in high school—”

Ray suddenly remembered Fraser handing him the rotary phone in Frobisher’s detachment the night before they set out, telling him Vecchio wanted to talk to him. Vecchio’s voice was smug: _Stella and me are moving to Florida together. Isn’t that great, Stanley?_

“Rattled Frank’s chain, huh?” Ray said.

Andrea looked him in the eye, held his gaze. “Professionally,” she said clearly. Then she turned and followed Dezzy out of the office.

~~~

Mort started working on a cause of death, and Dezzy started following up on Zuko’s known associates, but Ray had to be a lieutenant for the rest of the afternoon. He supervised a few interviews and line-ups, hauled Peterson into his office to explain an expense report, and wrote a press release about Zuko’s body, though he didn’t release the name. Dewey poked his head in to say that he and Dezzy were going to check out Zuko’s apartment, but Ray made himself sit still and finish reviewing Gustafson’s evidence logs.

When Anita buzzed him a half hour later to tell him that Dewey had called in for a forensics unit, Ray’s first impulse was to jump in the GTO and drive like hell, but he didn’t. He jockeyed the desk a little longer, dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s, reminding himself all the while that if he finished the work now, he could stop in at the scene on the way home and he wouldn’t have to come back here till the morning. Which, after a day that started at 3:48 in the morning, was pretty damn good incentive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for a possible ending:
> 
> \- When Ray V. ended his assignment as the Bookman, Agent Paul Schuster gave him his card, told him to call him if he got bored. Ray scoffed, but Stella kept the card. A few months later, Ray runs into Frank Zuko, who's in Florida for his mother's funeral. He thanks Ray for the letter to the parole board and acts friendly. Ray, seeing an opportunity to get what he's always wanted, reciprocates, and later calls Schuster to tell him he's coming out of retirement. He integrates himself into Zuko's inner circle, playing on Zuko's long-simmering crush on him, and soon Ray finds himself at Zuko's right hand and follows him back to Chicago. No one in the Chicago PD knows this. 
> 
> \- Things happen, Zuko winds up dead, and the crime family has arranged it so that Ray V. takes the fall. (Maybe they'd been trying to push Zuko out for a while and/or Zuko was playing the long game and knew he'd be taken out, so he figured he'd take out his old friend Ray at the same time.) Ray V. has been a cop long enough to know that it looks bad -- there's evidence, a lot of it, that he's involved. And he can't go to the CPD, so he goes North, to Fraser. 
> 
> \- This is why Fraser is calling Ray K. 
> 
> \- Fraser and Ray V. then become the antagonists, working against Ray K., who knows all about how both Ray V. and Fraser have threatened Zuko in the past. 
> 
> \- Does he believe Fraser? Maybe, maybe not. 
> 
> \- Does he want to help Vecchio? No, not really. 
> 
> \- Does he want to keep his job? Hell yes, it's all he has. 
> 
> \- Who actually killed Zuko, and how will Ray K. figure that out? Your guess is as good as mine. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
